Apple scored the $30 million contract from the L.A. Unified School District this week, which will deploy iPads to all students throughout 47 campuses.

The Board of Education voted 6 to 0 on Tuesday to approve the contract after receiving positive input about iPad use from teachers and students. The iPad was also the least expensive device.

The L.A. Unified School District is paying $678 per iPad, which will come pre-loaded with educational software, but won't include a keyboard.

The school district also committed to spending "hundreds of millions of dollars" with Apple over the next two years, since they chose the company as their only tablet vendor.

The iPads have a three-year warranty that includes free replacement devices up to 5 percent of the value of the purchase price.

The $30 million for Apple's iPads is a steep contract price, but the L.A. district insisted on the measure because new state and national tests will be taken on computers, and it doesn't want its students falling behind on computer skills. Also, the software will help students in the classroom and after school for studying.

However, there are many concerns floating around the new agreement with Apple. Chief Strategy Officer Matt Hill complained that the funding came from facility bonds, which could have been used for construction instead. The teachers union wanted the money to be used for the hiring of new teachers.

Aside from school staff and officials, Microsoft has a beef to pick with the L.A. Unified School District too, and I bet you can guess why. That's right -- it wants its Surface tablets to be adopted by school districts so that students start using the Windows operating system early, and this will hopefully lead to loyalty to the OS as they upgrade over the years.

Robyn Hines, senior director of state government affairs for Microsoft, said that using only one platform throughout the district would limit options, such as innovations/price cuts from other companies and students' ability to learn platforms they'd find in the workplace (such as Windows).

Last week, Microsoft announced that it was giving away 10,000 Surface RT tablets to teachers at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). The idea was to spread RT adoption in schools by supplying teachers with the devices and even training them how to use it. Microsoft is also expected to announce its "Microsoft Surface for education limited time offer" this month, which will offer $199 Surface RTs (normally retails for $499) to schools and colleges interested in adopting the tablets. If the schools want a touch keyboard with their Surface RT, the total price is $249 (retail $599) and with a type keyboard, the cost is $289 (retail $629).

Apple has been making its way into classrooms around the U.S. for years now. In 2011, Maine spent $200,000 to supply its kindergarteners with iPads. Later that year, the iPad entered other elementary schools, such as a third-grade classroom in Millstone, New Jersey.

Aside from the $30,000 L.A. Unified School District contract, Apple is using other ways to pull kids into its platform early: Apple Camp.

Apple Camp is a three-day, creative workshop for children ages 8-12. It will be held at Apple Retail Stores, and allows kids to film footage and create songs using iMovie and GarageBand on a Mac. After the three days are complete, the children present their work at the Apple Camp Film Festival.

quote: More teachers vs more effective teaching through technology. Decreasing burden of teaching and allow larger class room sizes by providing electronic testing methods that allow instant grading. Lower cost of materials and video conferencing for students who are out sick or parent teacher conferences.

We went from having the #1 education system in the world to #16. Ipads isn't going to help.

The most crucial part of school is social interaction.

What teachers have the most problems with is classroom management.

Classroom management is hard because kids have behavioral problems.

Kids have behavior problems because parents don't want to take responsibilities and time to be a parent to their kids.

Parents don't want to take responsibilities because they think it's the school's job.

The school can't do its job because the kids are so messed up.

and so on and so on....

I was teaching for a while but decided I need more money for my own sake. My girlfriend still teach.

In the city you deal with violent, illiterate kids that still have not been potty trained. Their parents come raging in drunk or high cursing at everyone.

In the suburbs, you deal with crying drama filled spoiled brats that thinks they're kings and princesses. Their parents comes in and threaten to sue for something as little as playing as playing a Justin Bieber Song during recess because "baby" is too provocative.

Since the 80s our education systems have failed due to the low quality of teachers because:

1. low salary2. teaching programs are bad. Very few good programs available overall3. teachers are now tasked with being a parent/babysitter at the same time4. teachers have to spend more time reinforcing behaviors5. parents are sue happy or don't care about their kids6. dumb regulations7. some areas became very dangerous8. schools are underfunded9. the appearance of charter school systems caused the public schools to have less funding

Here's the beginning of the breakdown in your logic. No, it is not, and never has been, and never will be, the most crucial part of school. Lessons on social interactions should be handled by the parents, never the teachers.

The biggest problem with our educational system is that teachers are taking too much responsibility on themselves. Social interaction, moral values, judgments on history, and political standpoints are never, NEVER the responsibility of the teacher. This is the realm of the parents. Many teachers take it on themselves to try to teach these things, cutting into proper teaching subjects and disrupting what parents teach their kids, and fail as educators because of it.

These things are not taught at Japanese or Korean schools, and these schools produce some of the best engineers in the world.

Finland's schools do, and all they produce are social scientists, nothing useful. Oh, sure, the educational organizations promote Finland as one of the best, but that's in their own self interest, promoting education for education's sake.

The real fact of the matter is that the US still produces the best engineers in the world, and that is because the teachers' unions haven't completely taken over. If you look at the number and quality of actually useful graduates, and even people like me who haven't been able to get through college (damn Englich Comp teachers! I get As in everything else with <15 hours of homework per week and can't get a C in an English comp 2 course doing 40+ hours per week!) yet still hold high level tech positions, the US is still ahead of the rest of the world.

Our problem isn't what we teach or how we teach it, the problem is that many teachers are presuming to know what is best for the kids, and they DON'T. They need to teach the damn subjects they're paid to teach and leave moral values and social standard to the parents.

quote: Here's the beginning of the breakdown in your logic. No, it is not, and never has been, and never will be, the most crucial part of school. Lessons on social interactions should be handled by the parents, never the teachers.

that's great to hear! except in reality, most parents does not want to teach their kids proper behaviors.

Stop going with the asian stereotype. The reason why that stereotype came to be is because immigrants speaks a different language. The only thing universal is math. Asian people wants their kids to learn math for the high paying hot jobs like accounting, engineering, banking, tech, IT etc...It had nothing to do being asian. You're just a stereotyping fool.

The best people at math actually has proven to always be white. Eg. Einstein, Hawkins etc...

Do you know anything about Japanese schools? They go to school 6 days a week for full days, half days on Saturdays in some schools, and strongly encourage clubs or sports. A student who isn't in a club or sports is considered a slacker. Teachers are also required by many schools to have visits to their students' homes to talk to parents, unlike our stupid parent/teacher conference days where they teachers get about 5 minutes with most parents. It's a stark contrast compared to our easy schooling. They actually put forward the effort to teach their kids what they need to know, instead of forcing down what the teacher thinks they ought to think. From what I've heard, Korean schools aren't far off.

The Japanese and Koreans also happen to have far more difficult native languages to learn to read. They spend more on teaching the basics of their written language than we do. Japanese have to learn 46 characters in Katakana, 45 in Hiragana, plus hundreds of Kanji just to graduate high school. They actually use more than 6000 Kanji for various words, and 90% of the population don't know a quarter of them. It amazes me how many definitions some of their words have, too, and much of it contextual. Korean is more complex in some ways and less in others. Both countries also have a much more extensive history to learn, being centuries older than the US. I'm impressed they actually have the time to learn hardly anything about math or science while trying to master such difficult languages.

On top of all that, their culture has certain strong values that drive them to be more. It's not that they're more capable. They're human. They aren't any more or less capable, on average, than Europeans, Africans, or anyone else. It's that their cultures push working hard and doing their best. (The way the Japanese encourage each other isn't "good luck" but rather "Do your best!" It is never about luck. Luck is a lazy way of thinking.) It's ingrained in them from a very early age. "Good enough" is only good enough if you have done the best you can. That is something we seriously lack, and it shows. Second and third generational Asians in the US lose that. That's why they don't appear to fit the stereotypes. If you have known someone who is in the US or Europe visiting or just moved here from Japan or Korea, you'd know that for truth.

It's not exactly a stereotype that Asians do better in any particular thing. It's that Japanese and Korean culture and languages are pushing them harder than other cultures.

If you're wondering if I'm a fan of Asian cultures, you;re right. The more I learn about them, the more I like it. Well, I like Japanese, Korean, and Chinese cultures. I've learned a bit about others and haven't been as impressed.

quote: and look where the japanese is now. Huge budget deficit, enormous national debt, ridiculous inflation, government expense is almost twice the national tax revenue.

A lot of that sounds rather familiar. I also doubt it any of it can be credibly linked to the Japanese education system. Tax revenue is down in part due to declining population, possibly because they're tired of living in broom closets.

Japan does not have a huge inflation rate. In fact, they've been having a problem with deflation. Please don't just make things up and throw it all on a pile to try and justify a certain point of view.

I didn't say they got it all right. (I'm white, btw, German, Irish, English, French, and a little Native American ancestry.) No culture is perfect. There are good and bad sides to all of them.

However, the Japanese and Koreans do have several points right where they need to be. That's what I'm highlighting.

Why is it when people promote something, others have to believe those people are denigrating other things that have nothing to do with it? It's like the stupid Literature teachers that keep overanalyzing old books to try to make them relevant to today's issues. I'm sorry. Most books simply relate to issues in their age. Some don't mean a darn thing.

Japan's suicide rate has the same reason behind it as any other suicide: loss of hope. All suicides boil down to that. If they had hope for the future, like that of certian western religions, their suicide rates wouldn't be so high.

@BRB29 - There is always teaching at the college/community college level. Its where I have been able to share my passion and help interested adults either hone their skills or developed news ones. Have even successfully placed several into positions. Teaching itself is truly rewarding, don't give up. Just need to find the right audience.

You sound like a bitter woman/man whose spouse left her/him and struggling to find a life. You go on the internet to bash others to feel good about yourself. As far as I'm concerned, you don't have to believe me or anyone here. This is the comment section and we're all entitled to our opinions.

I highly suggest you go back to to learning how to work hard and earn an honest living. I seem to be able to work full time, school full time, and take care of my 2.5 year old daughter just fine. I don't get much sleep now but I will when I'm done with my MBA.

Not bitter, again, assuming. My GF and daughter are perfectly fine when I get home. Just don't like MORONS like you who think they know everything. Even when pointed out you are wrong. And, you call people liars when you don't agree with something they say. You called ME a liar as well as others.

I highly suggest you quit ASSUMING things about people, I EARN an honest living moron. For someone who "seem to be able to work full time, school full time, and take care of my 2.5 year old daughter just fine" you sure post an awful lot on here...

You have a daughter, that's fucking scary. I sure hope she is smarter than you.